Island Batik Giggles.....

As part of the Island Batik Ambassador program this year, the Ambassadors were sent an AccuQuilt Ready, Set, GO! package--a super deal if you are looking to get started with this cutting system--it includes a GO! cutter, 8" Mix & Match Qube, 2 1/2" Strip Cutter die and mat along with getting started instructions!! Pull it out of the box and start a new quilting adventure!! The assignment this month is to make a baby quilt featuring the sponsor AccuQuilt.

Since I do a bit of freelance trade sample designing with AccuQuilt, I was given the option to choose any other product as a replacement to the Ready, Set, GO!. You can read about that in my unboxing post HERE.

Let's get started. The first thing I do when getting new dies, is to draw lines 1/4" away from the blade on all sides of the shape. I have seen some use a specific silver sharpie marker for this step--I just use whichever one I pull out of the can first.

It should look like this when finished.

These marked lines will now give me boundries when placeing the fabric over the blades on the die board. On the AccuQuilt site you can find a Fabric Reference Chart HERE that will tell you the size of strip to cut for every die the company has. I highly recommend this reference!!!

Such a happy assortment of colors!!!! I also used the Grey solid from the Foundations line. LOVE this fabric!! Nice tight weave with virtually no fraying with cutting!!

When die cutting applique shapes, it is helpful to place the fusible to the wrong side of the fabric strips before die cutting the shape.

Then is it important to place the fabric on the die board correctly!! Ask me how I know this?!? Place fabric right side down over just the letters needed--remember that the fusible count as a layer--so 3 rectangles per letter max!

All the pieces ready to GO!--lickety split!!

Loaded the quilt top on the long arm....added the 80/20 batting provided to me by Hobbs....

...threaded the long arm with 40wt Aurifil #6724--Moonshine--provided by Aurifil in a previous Ambassador box....

....and quilted lots of happy little loops!! I call this design--One Way Loops--as I try not to change the direction of the loop.

I like to secure applique shapes with what I call--Snapliquilt--because it is a Snap to applique and quilt at the same time!! As I am quilting the background, I will just sneak onto a letter, quilt a squiggly line around the shape 2 or 3 times and then sneak back off the applique and continue quilting the background. Super fast and easy!! Don't you just love the definition of the stitiches with the 40wt Aurifil!!

And such great definition from the batting!! A quilter's dream--to see the pretty stitches!!

And here it is...Giggles with Island Batik!!

Thank you to Island Batik, AccuQuilt, Aurifil and Hobbs for provided the products to make this quilt!!
It will soon be in the mail to a dear friend of the family who just added another little girl to their family!

Petal Perch....June assignment

Island Batik's Ambassador assignment for June--Modern Style and larger than 36" x 36". It should include open negative space, high contrast fabrics and strong graphic appeal.

Now, those requirements are quite far to the left of what I usually design!! But I do love a challenge!!

I started with inspiration from a traditional pattern of mine--Mixed Bouquet--you can find that pattern here on Craftsy.

Using the Orange Peel die #55455 from AccuQuilt. I cut out several petals from the Plum Delicious line by Island Batik. These are leftover fabrics from the Mixed Bouquet quilt.

I really did not have a plan at all when I started this morning!! I cut out the petals and had some left over backing strips of Heather--Eclectic Garden--then just started sewing.  And then some ripping--until a plan started to present itself!!

After trying 3 different colors for the "perches" I finally came to the perfect choice.

I used a Frixon pen and the 45 degree line on an acrylic ruler to make an X for petal placement.

I also peeled apart some scraps of Steam A Seam Lite 2 and placed them on the X.

Violla!! Perfectly easy placement for the petals!! I choose not to cover the backs of the petals with fusible web to keep the applique shapes soft and flexible as this quilt might end up to be a baby gift.

Loaded up the little quilt on the longarm and went to quilting. Since I am thinking it will be a baby gift for a sweet little girl I decided to go with ribbon meander freehand quilting. And then when I came to the petals I could sneek right in and do a double line of doodle stitching to applique and quilt at the same time!! Win for the time column!!

Strong south winds are never good for taking outdoor photos when living on a hill.....

 ...and trying to take photos by myself---there were several failed attempts!!!

 So lay on the grass it is for this photo shoot!!!

 Petal Perch!! Strong graphic appeal!! Super cute and super fast!!

 Thank you to Island Batik for supplying the fabrics for this project and to Aurifil for the thread!!

Welcome to Lizard Creek Quilting!!

Hi all and welcome to Lizard Creek Quilting!! Where sunsets in the fall are just breath taking!!

Today is my stop on the New Quilt Bloggers 2018 Hop. Make sure and check out all the other stops to meet new quilting friends you didn't know you needed in your life!!

Click the Happy Stitching Team button on the sidebar to find out more information and where to enter for some amazing prizes!!

I have been quilting for over 25 years. But for many years before that I was into all kinds of country crafting items and sold them at local craft shows around the area. This gave me the opportunity to be a work from home mom, which I am very grateful for!!

Basically I just love to make things--anything!! Even if I have to digitize it myself...who knew I could make felt food!!

Ten years ago, I convinced my husband that I needed to add a long arm quilting machine to the mix of things I do. After coming up with a business plan, showing it could be a reasonable buisness--Lizard Creek Quilting was born!!

There is a small creek that runs through the farm we lived on, and also a piece of property we owned about 1 mile from the farm--you guessed it--Lizard Creek is the name of it.

I just love living in small town rural America!! Having a float in the local parade was a great way to advertise--and all it cost was the 2 five gallon buckets of candy that we threw to kids along the route!!
You can read more about it here.

Designing quilts based on deeply personal events in my family life has been the most rewarding part of my quilting so far. This quilt is called Promise Kept. It is a journal quilt my husband and I took along to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary. On our wedding day he promised me we would go to Hawaii for our 25th. Well I made him keep that promise!! I designed this quilt with spaces where we could journal about our trip. Every night we would each write what we did and thought about the day. Then when we returned home I appliqued pictures of the trip onto the quilt. The background fabric in the center blocks is fabric from our bridesmaid dresses. I made this quilt just for us--but loved how it turned out that I entered it into several shows where it won several ribbons. How cool that was!! It was even a semi-finalist in Paducah!! You can read about my experience to Paducah here. There are a few posts about that trip--just look in April 2013.

Lots of life happened the year I turned 50!! Became a Grandmother for the first time--super cool!! And we built a new house--with space for a new sewing space and an amazing long arm studio attached to the house. The previous long arm space was in a remodeled garage stall in the machine shed. While I felt super blessed to have this amazing new space--it took a while to get my creative mojo back. You can read about that here.

What started the journey back to my creative space was taking a class with Lisa Calle--Divide and Design. I highly recommend taking a class to jump start your creativity if you are in a slump.

This quilt is called--Cultivate your Creativity. It has photos of 6 generations of creative women in my life along with written stories of their life. I pieced the lady blocks over 25 years ago when I was just learning to quilt. They sat languishing in a box until I was cleaning out my sewing room to move. I decided to put them in my guild's rummage sale booth at the quilt show. While going through the booth, I just couldn't part with them yet--so bought them back. Well now I decided they had to be put into a quilt and not back in a box. So--this quilt was designed special to showcase the ladies and how we were all connected through our different kinds of creativity--gardening, canning, keeping a home with a very limited budget, knitting, sewing clothing, quilting, interior design and a budding artist!!

My creativity had come back!! Entering the AccuQuilt Barn Block contest was something I had done for many years--but in 2016--my block--Point of View was the grand prize winner!!
You can read my thoughts about that here.

Being an Island Batik ambassador has been soooo much fun and given me amazing opportunities. Sending off my first printed patterns last fall was a dream come true. Check out the Shop my Patterns tab for what is available now. There are more coming so check back often!!

Something I have always tried to instill to my kids is that--You never know if you don't try!!
I want to encourage you to try something you think is outside your box--or something you think you are not good enough for. Send in a design to a magazine--you never know if your name and quilt might be in the next issue!!

If I am not entering another quilt contest--Runner-up block AccuQuilt Barn contest 2017.
You can read the inspiration behind this block design here.

I will be loving on my grandchildren--add one more born this spring!!

Helping my husband--in this oh so sexy coverall outfit--with all that is required to raise a quality pork product--Hormel is where our hogs are processed--so the bacon you had for breakfast could have been raised by us!!

Or riding motorcycle with my husband. Finding inspiration for new quilts in all the beauty that is around the country.

Life is a great adventure.

What dream do you have that you think is too big to attain?? Tell me about it--if it is written down it might not seem so big--all it takes is one step and the adventure is started!! Where it ends is up to you!!

Below are the blogs for this week. Enjoy!!

Tracy        http://itsatsweetsday.blog
Joni        http://fortheloveofthread.com
Cherie B.    http://cheriesquiltingjourneyblog.wordpress.com
Cindy K.        http://graybarndesigns.com
Karen        http://thequiltrambler.com/blog
Sarah        http://9658textiles.blogspot.ca
Terri        https://meanderingsalonglizardcreek.blogspot.com
Liz        http://www.savoreverystitch.com

The Social Butterfly....Looking Back, Vintage quilts inspiring new creations.....

Sit back and enjoy the ride of how I arrived here with The Social Butterfly....

I have always admired the Grandmother's Garden quilts. So much so that I have a couple vintage flimsys in my "to be quilted" stack!! When pondering how to interpret the Island Batik Ambassador challenge for April of using a vintage quilt to inspire a new creation--I decided to pursue using a hexagon.

During some of my forced down time this past month, I was mindlessly watching quilting You-tubes and stumbled upon The Arrow quilt by Missouri Star Company. The video was showcasing a Half Hexagon die from Sixxix.  I have the Half Hexagon die #55165 from AccuQuilt--so I was ready to go!

I was intrigued by Jennie's method of cutting the background half hexagon shape in half to use as the side pieces for each unit. That was it--I am going to make a modern Grandmother's Garden type quilt using these shapes!!

All the half hexi pieces ready to go!! Love the pretty stacks of Island Batik fabrics!!

Doing some chain piecing. Love the dog eared corners for lining up the pieces!!

Ahhhh--a finished whole hexi---now what to do with it?!? So I pondered it for a bit--not very long mind you as I only started this project at 1:30 in the afternoon--and had a deadline of bedtime!!

The creative chaos that I work in!!

As I was ironing all those chain pieced half hexis, I recalled a video from Sizzix I had watched earlier in the month. They have a die called Geese Crossing that uses a similar shape as this half hexi unit with the backgrounds attached.

So there you have it--my mind switched to that!!

Instead of hexagons--they became short stack flying geese!! Yeah I don't know what to call that unit--so I made it up--LOL. But I love the finished block.

We interrupt this sewing session to bring my husband supper in the field!!

Nine blocks later--a cheerful happy quilt.
I was in need of something spring like--and have just the right place in mind for it.

During the quilting I thought that these big open white spaces needed something yet.

Butterflies--just the right touch to add some vintage feel that was missing.

So I used the Butterfly by Edyta Sitar #55467 from AccuQuilt to cut out the shapes. You can use the affiliate link in the side bar to purchase your own dies! And since the quilt was still on the long arm frame, I just changed thread colors and stitched them right onto the quilt top.

Oh they make me smile!! Add the binding and finished by 9:30 pm!!!

The Social Butterfly, hanging by the front door into the studio. It will make me smile all spring and summer!!

"Happiness is like a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."   --Nathaniel Hawthorne

And that is how I started with vintage Grandmother's Garden and ended up with The Social Butterfly!!

Thank you once again to Island Batik for supplying the gorgeous fabrics and to Aurifil for the threads!! These products combined make beautiful things!!